


A message to the fish from a woman with no name

by Roga



Series: Three Tales of Documents found in Ancient Persia [2]
Category: Megilat Ester | Book of Esther, Tanakh
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Community: purimgifts, Female Characters, Gen, Jewish Character, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-20
Updated: 2008-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roga/pseuds/Roga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A letter in a bottle...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A message to the fish from a woman with no name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shayheyred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayheyred/gifts).



Esther has nothing to do in the mornings. The Women’s House is a city unto itself, and she has taken it upon herself to rule over women’s matters and Jews alike. But the work day of a Persian bureaucrat does not begin until well after dawn, and she has never lost Hadassah’s habit of waking up just before the sun’s first rays pierce her curtains.

So she walks. For an hour, sometimes two, every morning, trailed by three guards who are decorated with steel and gold and chains and all the other metals Persians are so fond of. Ahasureos thinks it ridiculous, walking when she has the empire’s finest horses at hand and eunuchs with embroidered litters to carry her wherever she pleases, but he has long since given her up for strange, and she has long since given him up for a fool, and they live with one another in peace.

This morning, she veers from her usual path and decides to follow the western ridges that lead to the dunes. She stops atop a hill, gazes at a bowl-shaped valley below her. Low trees and bushes snake through it, and in the winter, after the first heavy rains, a river will flow there too. Once upon a time there was a lake here, the stories say. Maybe even an ocean. She closes her eyes, smells the sand and the memory of water.

Something shifts by her leg, and she glances down in surprise, and _this_ is strange. She crouches, runs her fingers over the clay jug that’s half-buried in the sand. With a gentle tug the lid falls off and she cautiously peers inside.

Her breath catches. It’s a scroll, almost perfectly preserved, yellowed and crinkled and reeking but there, and it is written in Hebrew. It starts with the words _dear fish_.

Esther begins to read.

> _Dear fish,_
> 
> My sons are driving me crazy.
> 
> Of course, here I am, writing a letter to fish, which shows just how quickly my own sanity is deteriorating. But it isn’t as if I have many people to talk to. Creatures, yes. I have those. The goats feel like home, the monkeys are great conversationalists if you don’t mind the hair-pulling, the wolves aren’t too loud and the squirrels don’t smell too bad. My favorite are the mammoths; so gentle with one another, and lovely to nap against, all warmth and companionship.
> 
> The rest of this boat, though. Oy. I suppose a little cabin fever is a normal thing when you spend most of your days shoveling crap off the deck, but when grown men reach a point when the winning argument in a fight is “I’m telling Mom”, well, you know you’re in trouble. I am zookeeper and referee; in the mornings I change water bowls and distribute grain, and in the evening I am subject to conversations such as this:
> 
> “Why am I in charge of reptiles tomorrow? I wanted birds.”  
>  “Japheth called dibs.”  
>  “He did not! Anyway I’m the oldest, I should get first choice.”  
>  “Dad let me be in charge of the lists, that means I’m, you know, in charge of the lists.”  
>  “It’s not fair. I hate snakes. Japheth always gets the good stuff. You’re so anti-me.”  
>  “There he goes again with the conspiracy theories. Mom, will you talk to him?”  
>  “You’re such an ass.”  
>  “You’re such a mole.”  
>  “You’re such a frilled lizard.”  
>  “You’re such a pink fairy armadillo.”  
>  “Alpaca.”  
>  “Sloth.”
> 
> And on and on they go. The last time they made it for three entire days without running out of names, my dear idiot boys. My daughters in law, meanwhile, have started a book club in their downtime. My husband, you see, is writing a book. He’s only got six chapters so far – it’s very slow going, because half the pages are destroyed by this non-stopping rain – but they’re not too bad, and the girls, at least, enjoy discussing it, its merits and inconsistencies. They’re quite the little philosophers. It’s all a bit over my head, I’m afraid; the girls are all smarter than I am. It would be a shame, really. It’s a shame. Everything wiped out.
> 
> See, we’re not like you fish, humans. No gills. Makes this whole flood thing a bit difficult, you know? We’re down to eight now. Eight that we know of. Once upon a time there was a thing called civilization, see, but all it takes it a bit of evil and a bit of water to…
> 
> I don’t even know what I’m doing now. These days I’m finding it hard to hope for anything. I don’t know when the rain will stop, I don’t know if it will at all.
> 
> You fish are wise, aren’t you? God has chosen to save you, after all. Only two camels and two sheep, but there are thousands and thousands of you yet, fish and dolphins and whales. The remnants of the old world, you and my husband’s book, if it is not destroyed too. And if, in the end, you are the only ones who remain…
> 
> Remember us. Remember we were here, and we built a boat, and we tried. Remember me and my boys and my girls.
> 
> (just don’t remember me as the batty old lady who wrote letters to aquatic vertebrates.) 

The scroll isn’t signed. Esther reads it again, and again. And swallows, and reads it one more time, and rolls it up and hides it in her robe, and walks towards her guards.

 _Once upon a time there was a man named Noah_ , she can hear almost Mordechai’s voice, lulling her to sleep with stories as a child, before she learned to read herself. Once upon a time there was a woman, and the most remarkable thing about history is that it happened to actual people. One day, maybe, they’ll write a story about Shushan, and there will be a book about how Mordechai saved all the Jews in Persia. Maybe they’ll remember her too.

As she leads the guards back to the palace, she thinks: royalty might be boring, but at least she’s not living on a boat.

**Author's Note:**

> Bottom photo is from sxc.hu; top was made by me.


End file.
